


Glints of Light on Broken Glass

by rebeccaharper1



Category: X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Cherik - Freeform, Mutant Powers, Mutation, Past Character Death, Past Relationship(s), Secret Relationship, Suffering
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-12
Updated: 2016-06-12
Packaged: 2018-07-14 12:14:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7170662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rebeccaharper1/pseuds/rebeccaharper1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Distraught with memories of his past traumas, Erik Lehnsherr discovers new hope, suffering, and turmoil within a man named Charles Xavier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Don't Ask.

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place in the First Class era and has some slight dialogue alteration to fit with the plot of the fic. Hope you enjoy!

At night-

Erik lies, eyes unblinking and hands folded into each other on his stomach, staring at the popcorn ceiling above him. He thinks too much, but he can’t help it. Even in his consciousness, he is fraught with nightmares of Shaw, of the camps- with nightmares of his mother. Every night, plagued with the same memories of pain and suffering. He prefers to stay awake, no matter the price he pays the next morning. It’s still better than dreaming. 

He thinks of drowning most often, and the night he followed the submarine to the depths of the water. He couldn’t let go of his grip. He refused, for reasons no one could ever understand but him. 

But-

_ Just above me,  _ he thinks, _ is the man who thought he saved my life.  _

Charles Xavier- the man, the mutant, the  _ martyr _ . Erik’s so-called  _ savior _ was guided by his blind benevolence and hope, looking to find light in each situation where light was never shed. He thought that sparing Erik’s life from the water would also spare him a lifetime of pain and anguish. 

_ Stop. He’ll hear this.  _

Still, he begins to think of the water, enveloping him in its grasp. It was a choice for him to follow that submarine, it was a choice to die. He was at peace with it. 

He hears a knock on the door, and slow footsteps pacing in place. 

_ It’s not Charles. He wouldn’t have knocked.  _

“Erik?” It’s Raven. 

Slowly, the door begins to open, surely enough to wake Hank McCoy in the next room. In the darkness, he can barely see her- just glowing yellow eyes and the white shirt she wore to cover her naked blue form. A grin crosses his face. He likes the way she holds her head higher when she has nothing to hide- no mutation, no vibrant red hair or blue skin. She’s not afraid. 

_ That’s how she should feel. _

“Erik. I know you’re awake.”

“Yes?” He replies, his throat hoarse with the coming wave of exhaustion. “You came to talk?”

He can see her shake her head in the dark. He flips on the lightswitch, blinding himself for a millisecond or two, so he can better see her, observe her. 

He reaches for the mug on his nightstand. Instead, he finds a bottle of cognac- he can't remember why. 

“You’ve been drinking lately.  _ Cognac _ . That brand’s heavy, y’know.”

“I can't remember serving myself any.”

“You must have had too much.”

He looks at the bottle.  _ It’s nearly full.  _ “I suppose I did.”

Raven gazes at him, he realizes, in the way a schoolgirl looks at her crush on the playground, and he smiles. He admires Raven for many reasons, and once there was a time he wanted her, but not now. 

_ Now, _ he loves her in some other way, perhaps paternally. He admires her for her strength, the rising confidence in her powers, and the solidarity of her mind.  _ She is beautiful, _ he thinks.  _ But she will not be mine. _

“Erik,” she whispers.

“Raven?”

“Why don’t you sleep?” she asks, as if she knows what the wrong questions are.

He chuckles at her question, mockingly. The smile fades from her lips immediately. “Did Charles send you to relay a message to me?”

“No,” she whispers. “He’s falling apart, he won’t ask anything of me.”

Erik feels some harsh blow in his head, something overwhelming and unfathomable. Raven’s disappearing smile soon morphs into an expression of sadness, guilt, maybe even confusion. _She’s distraught._ _Defensive. Don’t ask._

“You don’t have to be a telepath to know if someone sleeps well at night. In your case… not at all.”

“Why the sudden intrigue?”

“I just want to know what’s on your mind.” Slowly, cautiously, she sits beside him, resting her head on the pillow next to his. She’s careful not to test her limits. There’s only so much she can do before something sets off his temper. “What do you think about when you can’t sleep?” she asks. 

Perhaps, she’s already set it off.  _ She doesn’t know how hard that question hurts, _ he thinks.  _ How could she know? _

“My past,” Erik tells her simply. “I think about my mother and father sometimes- their faces, their tears and laughs. They were good people.”

“They treated you well?”

“They loved me.  _ Dearly,” _ Erik continues. His vision begins to grow red.  _ Anger.  _ “I think of the life they had before everything turned to ash-”

The bottles shatters on his nightstand, startling Raven. He remembers the metal cap on the bottle which must have compressed until it shattered.  _ Control yourself, Erik. _ “I think of everything I used to have, everything that I’ve lost.”

“Why don’t you  _ try _ to rest? Does it not help-”

“ _ Raven _ .” 

_ He’s here. _

“Charles,” she mumbles, rolling over on her side until she’s staring him in the eyes, propped on her elbow. All she wears is a t-shirt that Erik could have sworn he’d seen Hank wearing this morning. Posed nearly suggestively, he fears how this might look to Charles. “Why be such a bother?”

He stands in the doorway, disgruntled and tired- he wipes the crust from his eyes and yawns. “You should be in bed. It’s late.”

Raven looks to Erik for reassurance,  though he knows it will only make matters worse. 

“You should be going, Raven,” He tells her, running his hand over the back of his neck. Averting his eyes from Charles’ accusatory gaze. He had nothing to hide- there was nothing wrong he had done. Not even a single suggestive glance at the mutant girl was made. 

**_Good,_** he hears Charles’ voice break through his barriers. _The damn telepath,_ he thinks, his internal thoughts spoken with a comedic disgust. **_I expect no less than common respect._**

“For me,” Charles whispers aloud. “And for Raven.”

The blue mutant girl pulls her crumpled shirt down past her pelvis in a feeble attempt to make herself look slightly more respectable.  _ Or at least less easy.  _

_ No. Don’t say that. _

Raven wants to feel proud, wants to feel free. Despite her strong feelings for Hank, she is plagued with his doubts brought about by her blue complexion.  _ She thinks he won’t love her. _

“Do you?” Charles asks, his voice quiet as Raven exits the room, a glare lying pitifully in her eyes as she silently reprimands him.  _ Ferocity in her every move, _ he thinks, then hopes that Charles hadn’t heard that. As Charles watches her leave, he closes the door behind her. His eyes then lock with Erik’s- a death sentence to Erik. He is vulnerable, perceptible to his partner’s telepathic invasion. 

“I love her confidence,” Erik settles on the phrase. It’s safe. “She is a strong young woman. I think she deserves a little more appreciation from you, Charles. She’s wonderful-”

“You think that eyeing her half naked is appreciation? My God, you’re repulsing me. She’s not a piece of m-”

“She’s a mutant. She’s blue. She shouldn’t have to hide,” Erik replies, his tone growing firm, words justified by rapid thoughts in his mind he can barely comprehend. “She shouldn’t have to hide from us, let alone from me.”

Charles observes the man opposite him and runs his hand through his shower-dampened hair.  _ Deep in thought _ .  _ Thinking of the right words to say. _

“I just don’t think staring at her in that  _ way _ that  _ you do _ will help her achieve anything.”

“That’s how she gains confidence, Charles-”

“No,  **_that_ ** is how you get tips at a gentleman’s club. Stop it, will you?”

Through the telepathic connection, Erik feels something quick and sharp hit close to his gut.  _ Emotion. It’s not mine. _ Charles shifts uncomfortably in his stillness, wiping his nose on his long pajama sleeve. The shirt is entirely too large on his. It’s similar to a shirt of Erik’s that he had lost several days ago. The sharp pain subsides, but a trace lingers inside. Perhaps, he would discover what it meant another time. “Charles,” he whispers with a cunning grin. 

“What?”

“Is that  _ my _ shirt?”

“You know, I’m actually not sure. I found this in my laundry awhile back. It was warm, nice to sleep in. Does it look like yours?”

“Doesn’t matter. Keep it- only until morning. I’ll be needing it back.”

Charles Xavier- the man, the mutant, the one who stole Erik’s favorite shirt.

_ He knew. He knew.  _


	2. "I'll Worry About You."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "He's falling apart."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter will probably be short and brief. Hope you enjoy! Leave me a nice comment down below, or criticism! Anything constructive will help.

**_Can you hear me, Charles?_ **

No answer. Instead, the man stares blankly at Erik’s features trapped in tunnel vision, focused on something non-existent. His eyes glazed like those of a dead man, lips slightly parted, he  _ stared _ as though Erik was some sort of new specimen waiting to be examined.

**_Charles._ **

He snaps out of his daze. “It’s your move, Charles,” Erik tells him softly. 

“The chess- the game- yes. That.”  **_I’m sorry, my friend._ **

Knight takes Erik’s pawn. 

Erik sighs, resting his face on his hand. Just months ago, he would never have been so comfortable with playing chess with a man in the study. In fact, he would never have sat with a man at all without the intention of driving a knife through his ankles. 

Now the realization hits him. He’s not playing chess with Charles. He’s playing chess with no one at all. The man’s empty heart had no desire to play, nor did he have any motivation to finish the game he had already started. He was  _ tired _ . 

_ Again. _

Erik remembers Raven’s words amidst his own observations- he remembers the morbid features of her face as she admitted, “ _ he’s falling apart.” _

Just months ago, he would never have been so comfortable with playing chess with a man in his study. He would never have called that man his friend. 

Charles’ hand shakes as he responds to Erik’s next move-pawn takes rook. It shakes terribly, enough to nearly knock over his glass of alcohol, the glass of alcohol Erik hadn’t seen him serve. Perhaps he tried to hide it from him, like his sudden craving for alcohol was something to be ashamed of. Charles closes his eyes and takes a large gulp from his glass, large enough for Erik to notice something was wrong. Everything was wrong- from the way his eyes glazed, hands shook, to the silent curse he heard uttered from his lips, to the way he could barely meet Erik’s gaze. “ _ He’s falling apart.” _ The thought is ever imminent as before. 

Charles’ breath hitches. 

Erik looks up from the game, silently moving his last knight to Charles’ queen, slowly so he doesn’t startle the man.

“Why was Raven with you last night?” Charles asks, his fingers on his temples. 

“You don’t have to read my mind. I’ll tell you honestly everything we did.”

“Which was completely innocent, I’m correct?”

Erik chuckles, which isn’t the best decision in his case. The other man’s eyes narrow as he runs his hand through his hair which had grown slightly longer and shaggier than before.  _ He’s slowly letting himself go. He can’t even trust in me anymore. _ “She asked me what I thought about when I couldn’t sleep. Asked me about what my parents did, who they were. She was interested.”

“And the shirt?” he asks. “Whose is it?”

“Must be McCoy’s,” Erik replies, adjusting his own dark turtleneck. “I don’t own anything similar-”

“So you think it was  _ wise  _ to encourage a young girl to toy with you while she’s someone else’s gir-”

“She belongs to no one, Charles. She’s not his anything.”

“That’s not the  _ point _ , Erik. She should have come to me.” His jaw goes slack, and he tears his eyes away. With every other syllable, despair rips through the airwaves.

Then a sound, as if Erik can hear Charles’ heart shatter like fine glass. The pain he feels-  _ it’s my pain too. _ “She should have come to me…” 

Since when did Erik have to feel his friend’s pain like this. Since when could Charles do this to anyone? He never wanted this, he never needed any pain to add with his own. Defected as he was, the pain he felt from Charles continued to break him down. He didn’t need it. Somehow he would rid himself of the burden. 

“You understand… I can’t control this sometimes,” Charles whispers.

Erik stares at Charles’ twitching hands as he touches his sweater sleeve.  _ Everything. Everything _ is wrong. It was almost as if Charles was no longer in control of his body in  _ any _ way. 

Erik had never been worried for Charles- he had always managed well on his own. He was sophisticated and poised, a perfect member of human society. He was never disliked or under-appreciated. Erik looks at him now, and sees not even half a man. He sees a hollow shell. Because  _ everything  _ is wrong. 

“What is  _ this? _ ” Erik asks, folding his hands together and resting them on his knee. 

**_Whatever this is, Erik- I don’t know._ **

“What’s gotten into you lately, Charles? You’re not yourself anymore.” The man that stares back at Erik is a stranger. Those bright blue eyes of his belonged to someone else. “You’ve changed…”

“Don’t you talk to me about…  _ change!” _ Charles hisses through his gritted teeth. “You’re not even the same person anymore!”

Before his eyes, Charles grabs his nearly-empty glass of something potent, wobbles to his feet, and launches the beverage at his wall- he watches it shatter into a million pieces. The sound it made- it’s the sound Erik heard when Charles made him feel the-

Suddenly everything had switched from a quiet wasted game of chess to a disastrous pile of shattered glass and alcohol on Charles’ rug.  _ Do I help him? _ Erik asks himself the question warily. Charles was barely in contact with himself- not entirely with Erik.  _ Don’t think. Don’t think of him, don’t think of helping him. _

Erik knows, however, the Charles needed help more than anything. He had yet to figure out where Charles had gone wrong.

“Raven,” Erik tells him.

“What about her-”

“You said it yourself. She needs you, Charles. She needs  _ you _ . Not this… other person you’ve become- not the one who drinks and loses his own goddamn game of chess. She needs you to stay alive in there.”

“Erik, you don’t understand-”

“I understand well enough that you  _ aren’t yourself  _ anymore.”

The sound of shattering hearts and pangs of repulsion cease for a brief moment- a moment of relief for Erik’s racing mind.  _ Calm down, Erik _ , he tells himself.  _ This is his fight. Not yours.  _

Charles averts his gaze downward in an attempt to hide himself, Erik thinks. It wouldn’t be an incorrect assumption- the man had everything to hide. He was losing himself to his torment.  **_Erik. You don’t understand._ **

Still. Silent. The pain subsides. 

“Charles, listen to me!” Erik whispers. He rises from his chair, and crosses the distance between himself and the other man. “Raven. She  _ needs _ you to be there for her! She’s lost you!”

“She’s lost nothing! She knows exactly what she wants, and it isn’t me. She doesn’t need my help- I can’t be there for her. She’s given up on me, Erik. She hasn’t lost me, she’s gotten rid of me. I don’t blame her.”  **_I’m falling apart._ **

They were the words Erik had been waiting to hear all night uttered from the contents of Charles’ mind. Erik had been waiting for Charles to admit his own defeat- he didn’t know why. Perhaps he waited to contradict him, maybe to agree with him. Maybe he waited for Charles to save himself. 

_ Realization. _ Placing his hands on the man’s shoulders, he smiles. It throws off the heavy heart rate, wild breathing patterns, racing pulse of Charles Xavier. “You’re not going to break, Charles. You’re going to stay here for Raven. You’re going to stay here for the kids. They need you and you need  _ them.” _

“They need someone that can take care of them. How am I supposed to do that when I can’t take care of mys-”

“Worry about them for now, Charles,” Erik responds quickly, a light grin in his lips. Charles begins to twitch. 

“Who’s going to-”

“ _ I am,  _ Charles.  _ I _ am going to look after you.” 

The look on Charles’ face is almost pitiful. He shuts his eyes as tightly as possible, twitching hands curled around Erik’s wrists, tears slipping from the corners of his eyes- yes,  _ pitiful _ .  In that moment, Charles is a small pathetic being. He needs help. 

“Worry about  _ them  _ for now. I’ll worry about you. Are we clear?”

 


End file.
